ransley wrote:

Old ones were not very good but what you state is completly opposite
of what is true now, I use about 50 of them indoors and out at several
locations up to -15f, the only ones slow to get bright are the flood
lights, this I am told is a heat design issue since they are enclosed.

Agreed, the only CFLs we have that take time to come to full brightness are
outdoor floods. However I have been disappointed at the lifespan of many
such lights, the promised five years has not panned out for us. That might
be more a matter of quality control during mfg. rather than the design, but
we've seen quite a few fail in only a year or two.

Get a 25 watt unit, it equals 100w incandesant, but if you only go in
and out for a minute, incandesant may be best.

When we first switched over we used CFLs for area lighting and some
incandescents in task lights, but even those have been replaced with CFLs
lately. We noticed a sharp drop in our electric bill as a result of using
CFLs, the only bug has been disposing of them when they do burn out but our
city now collects them at hazardous waste sites so we can save them in a box
in the garage and take them in once a year with whatever other toxic stuff
we have to get rid of, no big deal.